Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Rejuvenile Kickball Cartoons Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up by Christopher No Cupcakes Take The Cake. Our interview with Christopher Noxon, author of Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up, is probably our most serious cupcake interview at Cupcakes Take the Cake, thus far, but also one infused with all the enthusiasm for cupcakes one could hope for. I will be honest and say I have not finished the book yet, but not because I didn't find it totally gripping (it even got me to run out and buy a copy of Alice in Wonderland, which I also haven't read, but only for lack of time), but due to many other pressing deadlines. I am going to take it on vacation with me, though, and, despite the fact that cupcakes did not make it into the final book, I'm glad they're in the title because that's how I first heard about it, and I highly recommend it to all of you. It's a serious (but not overly serious) look at a fun topic, and you'll learn about professional skippers and many other wacky, childlike adults. So if you've ever said or thought, "I wish I could be a kid again," read Rejuvenile and learn about adults who, in many ways, are being kids again! You can also Read an excerpt from Rejuvenile at Powells.com, click through to the Amazon link below to see Noxon talking about Rejuvenile with Bill Maher, and I also highly recommend his Rejuvenile blog. Name: Christopher Noxon Age: 37 Location: Los Angeles Occupation: writer URL: www.rejuvenile.com. Can you briefly tell us what Rejuvenile is all about? Rejuvenile celebrates a new breed of adults who compete in spelling bees, professionals who play “all-ages tag,” mothers who learn skateboarding to be closer to their teenage sons, grown-ups who dress and party like they did in high school, and couples who visit a Disney park once a month (without the kids). It's a sympathetic yet probing look at adults who are upending traditional notions that one's age should dictate one's activities and mind-set. What's been the reaction to the book? Are the people you've profiled proud to be called rejuveniles? Do you meant it as an insult, or as something to embrace? Response to the book has been tremendoussince its publication I've been interviewed on the Today Show and the Colbert Report (where Steven and I shared a box of Magnolia Bakery's finest!), competed in a $50,000 rock paper scissor championship in Las Vegas and thrown out the first pitch at a kickball championship in Miami. Most of the people profiled in the book are proud to fly the rejuvenile banneradults with childlike tastes often feel tremendous stigma from more traditional adults, so it's a relief for many to learn they're part of a larger community. Still, the label is meant to be value-neutral; rejuveniles are geniuses, mavericks, oddballs, and crackpots. They can be lost souls whose tastes for childish things are creepy at best (Exhibit A: Michael Jackson). But they are also people whose refusal to give up cherished qualities of childhood has bettered themselves and the world. I first came across Rejuvenile on Amazon searching for cupcakes, but cupcakes didn't actually make it into the final book. What were you going to say about cupcakes and rejuveniles? I wrote a section on gourmet cupcakes and the resurgence of other foods loved by kids, including candy, grilled cheese sandwiches and cerealbut this section was cut from the final manuscript. (In the end, there was just so much ground to coverfrom the "invention" of adulthood to the role of marketingthat I had to make some hard choices!) Bit of false advertising considering the subtitle, if I do say so myself. But obviously I see the cupcake phenom as a pure and particularly delicious expression of the rejuvenile impulsethe desire to hang on to some treasured prize of childhood, be it staredown contests or Necco wafers or Tin Tin. One question we get asked a lot is why cupcakes are so popular with adults. Why do you think cupcakes are such big business? Is it all the nostalgia factor, or is there something about cupcakes themselves that lure people in? What I love about cupcakes is, first of all, how they invite such pure and unadulterated appreciation in adults. Other things I studiedfrom classic toys to comic books to kid games like dodgeball and rock paper scissorshave been rediscovered with heavy helpings of irony or kitsch. Not so with cupcakesthe very sight of a well-frosted made-with-love cupcake instantly triggers a happy, wondrous childlike response. Gorgeous, tasty and quickly consumed, cupcakes are icons of kidhood. And as an added bonus, many of the masterminds creating cupcakes are bringing whole new levels of sophistication and artistry to a treat that's for too long been thought of as junky supermarket food. What's the latest on the rejuvenile frontier? Since completing the book, I've met a number of activists who are devoted to bringing fun back into adulthoodfrom "play professionals" who consult with Fortune 500 companies to parenting experts who help moms and dads bond with their kids in new ways. I've also discovered more kid games that have been reclaimed by adultsthere's a National Association of Staredown Professionals, a New England-based Four Square league and a group in LA called Party Scammers that hosts nightclub kid parties with piñatas and games of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. And now for some personal questions: How often do you eat cupcakes? As often as possible, which with three little kids means quite a lot. I'm a big fan of the peanut butter chocolate cupcakes at Joan's on Third and the dairy-free chocolate cupcakes at Schwartz's bakery. Not a big fan of Sprinklesdespite Oprah's enthusiasm, they're not worth the half-hour wait and crazy prices. What's the best thing about eating cupcakes? The infinitely pleasing circular polka-dot appearance, the moist goodness, the sugar rush. What's your favorite type of cupcake? First choice would be a peanut butter chocolate cupcake . . . but I also had a transcendent green tea cupcake. How do cupcakes compare/contrast to other baked goods for you? Only baked good to compare is a gooey fresh-out-of-oven chocolate chip and pecan cookie. Is there any innovation you'd like to see made to the cupcake that would improve it for you? Must. Be. Moist. Also, I love it when the icing gets that slightly hardened layer on top. And here here for cool plastic toys stabbed into the topwhen are the new cupcake chefs going to get with the designers of cool new urban vinyl toys (i.e. Uglydolls, Friends With You) for some complementary top-of-cake trinkets? Do you bake your own cupcakes? Or (even better) have someone who bakes them for you? Sadly, no. Beyond the occasional gruyere-and-sourdough grilled cheese, I'm useless in the kitchen. What's your first cupcake-related memory? Wolfing down an entire box of pink supermarket cupcakes with my older sister. Pure heaven. What's the most fun you've ever had with a cupcake? Had a magnificent shared cupcake experience at my daughter's fourth birthday. Do you have anything else to add? I have tremendous respect for the enthusiasts taking cupcakes to such stellar new culinary heightslike a lot of the people in my book, I look at these grown ups as pioneers of a new, happier version of maturity. It’s true that the ranks of the rejuvenile include lost souls who indulge favorite pastimes of childhood to shirk grown-up responsibilities. But the vast majority of rejuveniles cultivate childlike parts of themselves while simultaneously leading fully fledged adult lives. They’ve discovered that it’s possible to be mature in many ways and immature in many others, that one can lead a happy and healthy life that includes charity and kickball, G-8 summit position papers and midnight cupcakes, long stretches of concentrated seriousness and mad fits of impulsiveness. Rejuveniles can be moral, political, spiritual, and also frivolous and off-the-charts silly. Rejuveniles are attempting to hang on to the part of ourselves that feels most genuinely human. We align with innovators like Albert Einstein and Richard Feynmann, who credited their greatest discoveries to their childlike impulse to question established wisdom, executives like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, whose playful innovations relied on their mastery of make-believe, and artists like Walt Disney and Hayao Miyazaki, who opened up reserves of imagination to all ages. We take their examples as proof that an adult life can be productive and spontaneous, effective and serendipitous. They pulled off the ultimate rejuvenile trick: they grew up without getting old. Nation of kids: American adults won’t grow up. Boys and girls used to grow up and set aside their childish pursuits. Not anymore. These days, men and women hold on to their inner kid. They live with their parents far longer than previous generations. They’re getting married later. And they’re waiting longer to become parents. Even when they have kids, moms and dads download pop songs for their cell phone ringtones, play video games, watch cartoons, and indulge in foods from their childhood. Christopher Noxon explores this Peter Pan culture in his new book, “Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grownup.” Noxon, a self-proclaimed “rejuvenile,” was invited on “Today” to discuss his book. Read an excerpt: Chapter 1: The Invention of Adulthood. For rejuveniles today, all roads lead back to Peter Pan and the turn of the twentieth century. The natural capacities of children, which for centuries had been viewed as weak and wayward, were over the course of these few years discovered as a primary source of inspiration and profit. It would be another century before the rejuvenile rebellion we know today, but resistance to what historian Woody Register calls “the enfeebling prudence, restraint and solemnity of growing up” began here, with the first flight of Pan and the dawn of the twentieth century. The temptation today is to think of adulthood as a historic and natural fact. In a 2004 essay on “The Perpetual Adolescent,” Joseph Epstein wrote that historically, adulthood was treated as the “lengthiest and most earnest part of life, where everything serious happened.” To stray outside the defined boundaries of adulthood, he wrote, was “to go against what was natural and thereby to appear unseemly, to put one’s world somehow out of joint, to be, let’s face it, a touch, and perhaps more than a touch, grotesque.” A quick survey of history, however, reveals that adulthood is neither as ingrained or ancient as Epstein and other Harrumphing Codgers assume. Before the Industrial Revolution, no one thought much about adulthood, and even less about childhood. In sixteenth-century Europe, for instance, “children shared the same games with adults, the same toys, the same fairy stories. They lived their lives together, never apart,” notes historian J.H. Plumb. This shouldn’t suggest that people in olden times didn’t distinguish between kids and grown ups. Of course they did. The distinction forms the basis of rites of passage that are as old as human history, as well as some of more recent vintage. Amazonian initiation rites, Jewish Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Muslim khtme qur’ans, Christian confirmations, American debutante balls — all serve the same basic function: to formally announce the end of childhood and the assumption of new duties and freedoms. It’s a mistake, though, to confuse maturity with adulthood. The maturity celebrated in traditional rites of passage — measured variously by the onset of menstruation, the acquisition of literacy, or the ability to stalk and slit the throat of a large prairie mammal — is not the same thing as the idea of adulthood hatched a century ago by a coterie of Victorian clergymen and society ladies. Maturity is old. “Adulthood” is new. Excerpted from “Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grownup,” by Christopher Noxon. Copyright © 2006 by Christopher Noxon. Excerpted by permission of All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. 'Rejuvenile': Why Adults Are Attracted to Kid Stuff. Author Christopher Noxon talks about a new breed of parents that he calls "rejuveniles" and the phenomenon that has these adults hanging on to their youth. Noxon's new book, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up details the ins and outs of these Peter Pans. Noxon discusses his thoughts on child-like adults. Also joining the conversation is the author of an article on a similar New York phenomenon which he calls "grups." Christoper Noxon, author of Rejuvenile. Adam Sternbergh, wrote the article "Up with Grups" in the April 3 issue of New York magazine. Excerpt: 'Rejuvenile' Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email. hide caption. Why Now, Why Here, Why at All? Meeting this motley assortment of adults who share similar tastes, enthusiasms, and insecurities, one question pops up again and again: why? Twenty years ago, a grown man who built a skateboarding ramp in his backyard or filled his office with superhero paraphernalia would be viewed as softheaded or not quite all there. Today, he’s more likely to be celebrated as iconoclastic and hip. What happened in such a brief period to bust down the walls that once kept adult interlopers locked away from things loved by children. Most obviously, the rejuvenile is a product of affluence and abundance. It’s hard to nurture your inner child when you’re struggling to keep food on the table. While a surplus of discretionary income has certainly given adults the means to more fully realize their aspirations, that doesn’t explain why other, more mature pursuits -- bridge, anyone? -- have simultaneously fallen from favor. Rejuveniles themselves say their attraction to kiddie culture is at least in part a response to uncertain, anxious times -- the terrorist attacks of 2001, followed by infectious disease scares, a convulsing stock market, war overseas, and natural calamities at home have generated a strain of free-floating anxiety that seems uniquely sated by childlike comforts. As explained by Cyma Zarghami, general manager of the children’s network Nickelodeon, whose flagship cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants emerged after the 9-11 terrorist attacks as a totem of chaotic playfulness for kids and adults (a full 26 percent of SpongeBob’s audience in 2003 was over eighteen), we are simply seeking comfort in jittery times: "Especially around 9-11 and the war, we’re all attracted to someone who’s ridiculously optimistic," says Zarghami. "I can’t see how that’s a bad thing." Other more immediate demographic changes are shaping the rejuvenile character. At work, looser hierarchies have eased long-standing pressures to conform -- witness row upon row of cubicles piled high with lunch boxes, action figures, and Beanie Babies. At home, changing gender roles have blurred traditional roles of authority, prompting many adults, both men and women, to identify with their kids in ways their parents would have found ridiculous. And perhaps most significantly, the fact that we’re living as many as seven to eight years longer than adults fifty years ago has kept us in tune with our childlike sides longer than ever. As our life spans stretch out, whole new stages of development are emerging -- those periods of adult life that Gail Sheehy calls "bright new cities." In the absence of uniform zoning laws, it’s perhaps not so surprising that many of us have reconstructed the carnivals, playgrounds, and nurseries that provided the backdrop for our most vivid early memories. Many rejuveniles offer a more straightforward explanation for their tastes: They just like this stuff. The culture of children, they tell you, brims with qualities -- wonder, adventure, absurdity, make-believe -- in short supply in the adult world. Those qualities may be associated with childhood, but they’re essentially, even primitively, human. A century ago, Walter Crane, the illustrator of the first picture books, spoke of how the new medium gave him license to "revolt against the despotism of facts," a sentiment shared by many of today’s rejuveniles. "Comics get past our adult critical defenses," explains Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman. "Like the best stuff in kid culture, they appeal to our lizard brains." Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. Noxon. He’s the author and illustrator of Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook, published by Abrams. His novel Plus One is a comic Hollywood story of a “domestic first responder” househusband and his breadwinning wife. His first book, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown Up was featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, CNN’s “In the Money,” NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” and Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” As a journalist, he has contributed to The New Yorker , Details, The New York Times Magazine , Los Angeles Magazine , and Salon . His newspaper career included positions at the L.A. Daily News, the Cape Cod Publishing Company and the Los Angeles Independent Newspaper Group, where he won two first-place honors from the LA Press Club for feature and news reporting. As a freelancer, he covered the Democratic National Convention for Reuters; lived as a patient with recovering addicts for a Playboy feature about troubles with drug rehab; wrote about marketing and new media for Kurt Andersen and Michael Hirschorn’s Inside.com; and was the first journalist to report on actor Mel Gibson’s ties to an ultraconservative Catholic splinter group in a feature for The New York Times Magazine . His illustrations have been featured in The New York Times , The Hollywood Reporter , The Undo List , Modern Loss and the book Unscrolled: Writers and Artists Wrestle With The Torah. Along the way, he has worked as a costumed character at Universal Studios, answered letters of complaint at L’Oreal cosmetics, and was director of communications for Michael Milken’s prostate cancer charity. ricklibrarian. Lather was thirty years old today, They took away all of his toys. His mother sent newspaper clippings to him, About his old friends who'd stopped being boys. (Grace Slick, 1968) According to Christopher Noxon, author of Rejuvenile, many adults are more playful than they were twenty years ago, as it is more socially acceptable to collect toys, frequent theme parks, and play games. Playful adults are not ridiculed like Lather in the Jefferson Airplane song. In fact, corporations with eyes toward profit and psychologists who measure mental health support the transformation. A new form of adult has evolved, which may be called a rejuvenile, a kidalt, an adultescent, or a twixter. Noxon claims to be a rejuvenile. He enjoys going to kids movies and playing with his children. He might even play with the Legos and toy cars when the children nap. As a parent he is easily granted this license. Adults without children are also enjoying freedom to play. In his book, he profiles several, including Tobias who plays dodgeball, Kate who organizes games of tag, Kim who skips instead of walking, and Barb who is called the Skateboard Mom. Noxon shows these people to be well-adjusted, productive adults who like to play, and he poses that an adult playing tag is having more fun than an adult golfing. The author goes on to explain the difference between childlike and childish, admitting their are some adults who are trying to escape reality through regressive behaviors, but he believes these individuals are a minority of rejuveniles. In Rejuvenile Noxon writes about Walt Disney and his legacy, about adult children who live with their parents, and parents of young children learning when to let them play undirected. Librarians will recognize some rejuveniles among their clients and among themselves. Every public and college library should have a copy of this book. Noxon, Christopher. Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006 ISBN 1400080886.